January 27, 2016

Alumnus Co-Writes CeeLo Green Song

Music producer Alex Kresovich ’08 co-wrote the song “Thorns” on CeeLo Green’s new album “Heart Blanche” — released on Nov. 6 — according to a University press release.

Kresovich said he co-wrote the song with Ithaca natives Sam Nelson Harris and Hayden Frank of the rock band X Ambassadors.

According to Kresovich, he made the track for “Thorns” immediately after he lost out on a publishing deal and the news devastated him.

“I felt the need to create something soulful to mend my broken heart,” Kresovich said. “I had never made a track like it before, and maybe it took having all my plans fall apart to put me in the mindstate to create something truly soulful.”

“[Green] couldn’t have been a nicer guy, and hearing him brag about how excited he was about ‘Thorns’ is a moment I’ll definitely never forget.” – Alex Kresovich ’08

Kresovich described the song as about the “one girl who will always own your heart.”

“The song idea for me was certainly inspired by one person in general in my mind,” he said.

While Kresovich came up with the song’s concept and instrumentation, he attributes most of the lyrical content to Harris.

“The idea lyrically was mostly if not all Sam’s,” Kresovich said. “Sam really made the idea his own, so I can’t take too much credit.”

Green’s label company, Primary Wave, also invited Kresovich to their party during Grammy Week where he met Green.

Kresovich called Green a “legend” and said he has a “star quality.”

“He couldn’t have been a nicer guy, and hearing him brag about how excited he was about ‘Thorns’ is a moment I’ll definitely never forget,” Kresovich said.

Kresovich attributed his opportunity to work with Green to the fact that he is a “determined hustler.”

“I don’t really know if long-term I’ll succeed or fail in terms of chasing this dream, but I damn sure won’t let myself fail for lack of effort,” Kresovich said.

Kresovich said he emailed multiple people, including the chairman of Atlantic Records — Green’s label company — before the CEO of Green’s management company gave him a response and Green began recording the song.

“I looked up all [Green’s] album credits for his last few and emailed every manager, A&R, and who-knows-what person with the song just because I believed in it so much,” Kresovich said.

The whole process started in January, eleven months before the album came out, when Kresovich first heard that Green was working on a new album, he said.

Kresovich said he has been writing songs since high school and actually started out wanting to be a rapper.

“As my tastes and influences have evolved so have I, but I’m definitely still living in both the rap and pop worlds,” he said.

Since then, Kresovich has moved to LA. He is currently working with Moosh & Twist on a new project and The Voice finalist Chris Jamison on his new EP.

“[I have] other big stuff in the works, too, but I don’t want to mess it up by talking about it,” Kresovich said.

Alexander Lavin ’12 was one of 600 candidates selected from a pool of 15,000 applicants. He was honored for his research at Numenta, a company that works in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence.